Visitors Guide to Glen Carbon
Madison County, Illinois

Glen Carbon, which means coal valley, is located south of Edwardsville, in an area that was once known as the "Land of Goshen." This reference comes from a Virginia Baptist minister, David Bagley, who passed through the area in 1799 and compared it to the Biblical "Land of Goshen," a place of peace and plenty. In 1801, Colonel Samuel Judy received a military grant for 100 acres of land near just north of Judy's Creek and became the first permanent settler of Madison County. The area became known as the Goshen Settlement though its boundaries were never clear. In 1808, the Goshen Road trail was built as a wagon road from the Goshen settlement to the Ohio salt works at Shawneetown on the Ohio River.

Madison County was organized in 1812 after the territorial government was formed and Goshen Township was established soon after. Trains and coal mines played an important role in the town's economy in the late 19th century. The Peters Station area became an important rail center when the Clover Rail Service opened in 1883. The distinct Norman tower of the Valler & Spies Milling Company was one of the station’s prominent customers and is still a town landmark that now serves a local greenhouse. There were seven major veins of coal in the city and the last coal mine closed in the early 1930's. Many of the old roadbeds have become nature trails.

Glen Carbon now serves mainly as a residential community that has easy access to St. Louis due to the close proximity to I-270. But visitors can experience the past living conditions of the "Land of Goshen" era at the Yanda Log Cabin. Built in 1853 by William Yanda, a Austrian-Bohemian blacksmith, the cabin was bought by the Village of Glen Carbon in 1989. Renovations began in 1989 and were finished in time for the Village's Centennial Celebration in June 1992. The Glen Carbon Historical Museum is open to the public at its location in the Glen Carbon Centennial Library on School Street.